Former vice presidential candidate and Hillary Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro fought back against charges of racism Wednesday, defending comments she made earlier this week that Barack Obama "would not be in this position" if he were white.

Speaking with FOX News on Wednesday, Ferraro said her comments are being misconstrued, and that she was only saying that race in Obama's case, and gender in her own case, can be a reason why a candidate gets chosen over another candidate.

She said that in her comments to a California newspaper earlier this week, "I referred again back to the historic campaign of mine, and I said in Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Four, if my name had been Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro, I would never have gotten the nomination. It doesn't mean that I wasn't capable of doing the job. I certainly was. I believe that if we had gotten elected, I not only would have been a good vice preisdent, but I would have probably run for president in 1992."

She also accused the Obama campaign of continually playing the race card to its advantage.

"Every time this comes up, every time there is something to -- some opportunity to play the race card -- and this is being done by David Axelrod, who knows better, he's his (Obama's) campaign manager -- every time they have an opportunity to do it, they do it. They did it against Bill Clinton, and it worked. They shut him up. They did it against (Pennsylvania Gov.) Ed Rendell, it didn't work. And now they're doing it against me."

"I'm sorry. I said nothing negative. I care about the black vote in this country. I am absolutely thrilled by the historic campaign, and I really don't think this is right that they should attack me," Ferraro said.

Earlier, Barack Obama continued his attack on Ferraro, assailed her comments as "slice and dice" politics.

The back-and-forth between the two Democrat trailblazers -- Obama, seeking to be the nation's first black president, and Ferraro, who was the first woman on a major party presidential ticket -- continued for a second day as they made appearances on network and cable morning news programs.

"Part of what I think Geraldine Ferraro is doing, and I respect the fact that she was a trailblazer, is to participate in the kind of slice and dice politics that's about race and about gender and about this and that, and that's what Americans are tired of because they recognize that when we divide ourselves in that way we can't solve problems," Obama said on NBC's "Today" show.

The controversy began Tuesday when the national media picked up on comments Ferraro made in an interview last week with the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, Calif.: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Clinton rejected Ferraro's remarks.

"I do not agree with that," Clinton said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press, and later added, "It's regrettable that any of our supporters -- on both sides, because we both have this experience -- say things that kind of veer off into the personal."

"We ought to keep this on the issues. There are differences between us" on approaches to health care, energy, experience, Clinton said.